Labor Day Trip to Michigan

We took advantage of the flexibility of homeschooling and extended Labor Day weekend Friday through Tuesday. We travelled to Michigan to spend time with Jon's family. It's awesome to be able to pack up the school books and do school in the car and at the hotel. We were able to travel when the roads were less busy.... and spend more time up North.

 

As we often do, we stopped at the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, Ohio. It's such a beautiful and holy pilgrimage spot.

 

Jon stopped at this Shrine on his way to Columbus on the day he proposed to me.
It was at this Divine Mercy alcove where he prayed and asked God to bless our relationship.

Adam loved these beautiful zinnias, his favorite flower.
For some reason his didn't grow this year.

Every rest stop should have an awesome playground like this one in Michigan!

 We spent a few days in the Detroit area with one of Jon's sisters and her family. The boys love playing with their cousins. We played board games, went swimming at the YMCA, visited a playground.

These two are still two peas in a pod, born one week apart.

I don't know what happened to my camera once we got to Midland. I didn't take pictures, but we had a really nice time visiting Jon's mom. She is doing well. Our niece Addie has won a BIG scholarship that will pay for her last two years of college, including room and board and books and expenses! It's through the EPA (she's a fishing an wildlife major) and includes a summer internship and a job when she's done! What a dream! AND our nephew Emmett (who was the ring bearer at our wedding) is now engaged to his girlfriend Melissa! Lots of good news and exciting things happening.

It's always good to get up North and spend time with our family there. Can't wait to see them all again soon.

Because I can't seem to find time to write the awesome posts I want to write....

.... some random September snapshots!

 

First, some pretty pictures from our yard. Ray planted sunflowers on all sides of our house. It was a variety pack of seeds and we had a variety of sunflowers to show for it! They are pretty and it's been fun to watch the squirrels attack them for their seeds.

 

 

 Ray is standing in front of the GIANT flower-less sunflower plant that has leaves bigger than his head. We think a squirrel made off with the flower before it even bloomed.

 

We have an hibiscus tree that is ugly and mostly dead. We keep saying we need to get rid of it, but then it blooms beautifully again and again.

 

 

Similarly, a straggly rose bush in our front yard keeps holding on for dear life and surprising me with these pretty purple roses that smell like soap.

 

Silly boys singing and dancing in the rain

Rainbow!
And squiggly weird raindrops or other goo on my lens.

A pretty kitty in a pretty Autumn basket.
Gloria sat there on top of our school shelf through most of our lessons one day.

One evening while I was getting things ready for dinner I looked out my window and just felt so very happy.
Busy boys playing and Jon happily grilling. All seemed right with the world.

This is MY boy.... just loving some yummy ice cream with blue sprinkles.

 

What is it with boys and slimy creatures?
They have been finding (and torturing) tons of toads in our yard.

Adam "camping out" on a cool cot from Aunt Nancy.
A post from our Labor Day Michigan trip coming soon (hopefully).

Our family.
My mom took this picture at a restaurant....
to go in our homeschool photo directory.

 

So that's a fascinating (?) look at just some of the things going on with us these days. More thoughtful, coherent posts coming soon.

Before and After

BEFORE ---

AFTER ----

For Adam's birthday (way back on May 1st) we asked my dad to help us find someone to add monkey bars to our swingset. (Adam LOVES to climb, swing, hang.... he's part monkey.) We also wanted to strengthen the top bar that supports the swings. Basically, we wanted to upgrade our set to a "BIG BOY swing set." After all, they use it every day. Their recess is almost always in the back yard. Ray and Adam would get to swinging and the whole set would sway back and forth.

We NEVER thought it would take until the end of August for this project to be completed. We had horrible luck with contractors putting us off. Well, it's finally (almost) finished! And the boys are thrilled with it.

We had monkey bars added. Adam has already had blisters on his hands from them. Ray is practicing every day to try to make it across those things. They're pretty high up, but that's good for our tall growing boys!

The main support bar for the swing set is not only replaced and strengthened, but also lengthened. We added another a-frame and two more places for swings. So now we have two kids, but six places to swing. We know lots of families with more kids, but less places to swing. It's a good thing they hang out over here a lot! ;)

The boys are really enjoying their swingset upgrade. In the next few weeks we'll be staining it. And we need to find some kind of ground cover for under the swings.... rather than the dirt/mud spots that inevitably appear.

Thanks so much Dad (and Mary) for getting this done for us! And.... thanks for building the original set for us as well.... all the way back in the Spring of 2007! I remember how little the boys were and how big this swing set seemed. I was so scared that they would fall off and get hurt! Time flies! I can't believe we've already needed to upgrade.

A trip down memory lane .. to the first day we got the swing set... in April 2007!!!

Some Magical Homeschool Moments

I'm happy to report that it's been a good week of school so far. There have been several moments of real joy in our learning and working together. The boys have embraced the tougher schedule pretty well and also some increased responsibility (aka chores) around the house.

 

This morning Ray and I were working through his English lesson about writing a paragraph. I'm really pleased with the Seton English text so far. It was, however, dragging out the process of writing a paragraph. In the middle of the lesson some kind of light bulb went off in Ray's head. He said, "That is so cool! I want to write a paragraph right now!" Well, ok. So we closed the book and he wrote a really nice paragraph. He was so proud and excited about it.

Truly, it put him in such a good mood. He kept talking about how much he loves learning. And I was just proud of myself for being flexible enough to allow my lesson plan to change. ;)

 

A few days ago we did our art lesson on the back porch. It was so relaxing and fun. We sat out there and mixed colors and talked about shading and tinting. We painted together and really enjoyed it.

 

 

 

These are the kinds of moments that I really want to hold on to. It's not like this all day every day. We did have some tears this week as lessons were challenging. We didn't have fantastic healthy dinners every night. Adam's reading really well, but won't stop climbing on the furniture like a monkey. There will be tired, difficult days.... but it's so worth it. And now I have this post to look back at and remember..... and be inspired when things aren't so great.

 

Here's a beautiful article written by a friend of mine: http://www.setonmagazine.com/topics/featured-families/a-straight-and-narrow-path. She so beautifully sums up the vocation of homeschooling. It's more than an educational decision. It's a lifestyle choice. It's beautiful and wonderful and hard and messy.

 

And now I'm headed off --- on this commemoration of the beheading of John the Baptist --- to lead my first homeschool group meeting. I'm looking forward to seeing so many other Catholic homeschool moms.... but hoping my head doesn't end up on a platter if I say/decide/do the wrong thing. ;)

 

Finally ---- check out these new "Opus Domini" (our homeschool group) t-shirts! Can't wait to distribute them tonight.

 

 

Back to School 2013-2014

Although we've been gearing up for a few weeks --- adding more subjects each day --- today was our official first full day of school!

 

Check out these "official" first day of school pictures. Their outfits are funny. No new school clothes or haircuts. Ha ha! But here they are on the first day of 2nd and 3rd grade....

 

 We continued the tradition of presenting the boys with first day schultutes filled with school supplies and treats.

 Here we are busy learning...

 This year -- instead of our morning workbooks -- we are doing daily journals. Today they wrote three goals for the school year.

Adam's Goals

Ray's goals.

 We are learning about sound waves. This afternoon we did some hands-on experiments and designed our own musical instruments.

It's hard to see in the picture, but this is the old "two cups and a string" trick.

Adam's homemade guitar

Ray playing his homemade "pan pipe."

The day seemed long... but went well. This year I made a weekly checklist for each boy so that he can see what needs to be done each day and mark it off as he goes. I'm giving them more freedom to choose in which order to do their work.

We also instituted mandatory quiet time in the afternoon - after school and before playtime / video games. We are having the boys earn their video game time by competing in a daily Math facts flash card drill. The length of time they get to play their video games is determined by how many Math facts they answer correctly in five minutes. They compete as a team.... taking turns but adding up one tally of facts correctly answered. We plan to use harder cards and then shorten the time period as they get better at it. Today they earned 43 minutes, which is more than we usually want them to play... but they were excited at their accomplishment. The deck is already "stacked" for tomorrow. ;)

So... one day down. 180 to go. Pray for us!